Chapter 17
Aaron Shevick didn’t know exactly where the city’s pawn shops were. Reacher’s guess was they would be somewhere on the same radius as the bus depot. At a discreet distance from the fancy neighborhoods. He knew cities. There would be low-rent enterprises packed tight throughout the outlying blocks. There would be window tinting and laundromats and dusty old mom-and-pop hardware stores and off-brand auto parts. And pawn shops. The problem was planning a route. They wanted to be able to pick Mrs. Shevick up if she had already done her business and was already walking home. Not knowing her destination made that difficult. In response they drove wide loops, finding a pawn shop, checking inside through the window, not seeing her, setting out home until they were sure she couldn’t still be ahead of them, and then driving back and starting over with the next place they saw.
In the end they found her all the way west of Center, stepping out of a grimy pawn shop across a narrow street from a taxi dispatcher and a bail bond office. Mrs. Shevick, right there, large as life, head up, her purse hooked on her elbow. Abby pulled over next to her and Aaron wound down his window and called out to her. She was very surprised to see him, but she got over it fast. She got right in the car. Less than ten seconds, beginning to end. Like it had been arranged in advance.
She was embarrassed at first, in front of Abby. A stranger. You must think us very foolish. Aaron asked her how much she had gotten for the rings and the watch, and she just shook her head and wouldn’t answer.
Then eventually she said, “Eighty dollars.”
No one spoke. They drove back east, past the depot, through the four-way light.
—
At that moment, in his office, Gregory was getting the news about his massage parlor. By chance another of his guys had been passing by on unrelated business. He had sensed something wrong. Too quiet. He had gone inside. The place was completely deserted. Nothing but an old hooker, shot dead on the floor, in a big pool of blood. No one else. No clients. Apparently all the other hookers had run away. There was no trace of Bohdan or Artem. Artem’s phone was lying on his desk, and Bohdan’s jacket was still on the back of his chair. Not good signs. They meant they had not left the premises voluntarily. They meant they had left under some kind of duress.
Gregory called his top boys together. He told them the facts. Then he told them to think hard for sixty seconds, and come up with first an analysis of what the hell was going on, and second what the hell to do about it.
His right-hand man spoke first.
“This is Dino’s doing,” he said. “I think we all know that. He’s a man on a mission. We took two of his guys, with the trick about the spy in the police station, so he took two of ours, up at the Ford dealer. Which was fair. Can’t dispute it. What goes around comes around. Except evidently he didn’t like losing the loan business, so he decided to punish us by taking two more of our guys, on the restaurant block. So we took two more of his, outside the liquor store last night. Which was then four for four. A fair exchange. End of story. Except apparently Dino doesn’t agree. Apparently he feels he has a point to make. Perhaps an ego thing. He wants to be two guys ahead at all times. Perhaps it makes him feel better. So now he’s made it six for four.”
“What should we do about it?” Gregory asked.
His guy was quiet for a very long time.
Then he said, “We didn’t get where we are by being stupid. If we make it six for six, he’ll make it eight for six. And so on, forever. It will be a slow-motion war. We can’t get into a war right now.”
“So what should we do?”
“We should suck it up. We’re down two guys and the restaurant block, but we got the loan business instead. Overall we came out ahead.”
Gregory said, “Makes us look weak.”
“No,” his guy said. “It makes us look like the grown-ups, playing the long game, with our eyes on the prize.”
“We’re down two men. It’s humiliating.”
“If a week ago Dino had offered to trade all of his loan business for two of our men and the restaurant block, we would have bitten his hand off. We came out way ahead. Dino is humiliated, not us.”
“It feels weird, just to leave it.”
“No,” his guy said again. “It feels smart. We’re playing chess here. And right now we’re winning.”
“What will they do to our guys?”
“Nothing pleasant, I’m sure.”
No one spoke for a minute.
Then Gregory said, “We need to find the hookers. Can’t let them run away. Bad for discipline.”
“We’re on it,” someone said.
Silence again.
Then Gregory’s phone rang. He answered and listened and hung up.
He looked straight at his right-hand man.
He smiled.
“Maybe you’re right,” he said. “Maybe having the loan business puts us ahead.”
“How so?” his guy asked.
“Now we have a name,” Gregory said. “And a photograph. The guy who asked about Max Trulenko last night is called Aaron Shevick. He’s a customer. Currently he owes us twenty-five thousand dollars. We’re working on getting his address. Apparently he’s a big ugly son of a bitch.”
—
Abby parked on the curb next to the picket fence, and they all got out and walked up the narrow concrete path. Maria Shevick took her keys from the purse on her elbow and unlocked the door. They went inside. Maria saw the can of coffee on the kitchen counter.
“Thank you,” she said.
“Pure self-interest,” Reacher said back.
“You want some?”
“I thought you’d never ask.”
Maria opened the can and set the machine going. She joined Abby in the living room. Abby was looking at the photographs on the wall.
She asked, quietly, gently, “What’s the latest news on Meg?”
“It’s a brutal treatment,” Maria said. “She’s in a special isolation unit, either out of her mind on painkillers, or fast asleep, because they sedate her. We can’t visit. We can’t even talk on the phone.”
“That’s awful.”
“But the doctors are optimistic,” Maria said. “So far, anyway. We’ll know more soon. They’ll do another scan before long.”
“If we pay for it first,” her husband said.
Six chances before the week is over, Reacher thought.
He said, “We think Meg’s old boss is still in town. We think he still has money. Your lawyers reckon the best strategy is to sue him direct. Absolutely can’t fail, they said.”
“Where is he?” Shevick asked.
“We don’t know yet.”
“Can you find him?”
“Probably,” Reacher said. “That kind of thing used to be part of my job.”
“The law moves slow,” Maria said, like she had once before.
They ate the lunch from the gas station deli. In the living room, because the kitchen had only three chairs. Abby sat cross-legged on the floor where the TV used to be, and ate off her lap. Maria Shevick asked her what she did for a living. Abby told her. Aaron talked about the good old days before computer controlled machine tools. When everything was cut by eye and feel, to a thousandth of an inch. They could make anything. American workers. Once the greatest natural resource in the world. Now look what happened. A crying shame.